Okay... so I read more of the book and Dr. W (whatever his name is) of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child does not condone letting "young" (whatever he means by that) babies cry it out. I felt I needed to clarify.
We tried and it just felt totally wrong to me.. along w/ not working at all. We have decided that the set up we've got going right now is pretty damn good.. 9.5 week old babies sleeping (relatively consistently) for 6 hours a night is probably the best we could reasonably expect..and this a.m. Lily napped w/ me until around 9:45am. off and on w/ some nursing of course.
So what I've taken away for this period of their tender little lives is to pay attention to the maximum wakeful time of 2 hours during the day and even watching closely to see if they need to be put down before that. I think it's really helping. It just didn't occur to me that I would have to make sure the babies got opportunities to sleep.. I figured they would sleep when they are tired.
We are going to wait until the babies are between 12 and 15 (adjusted for their 3 week early arrival) weeks to start working on getting them to sleep in their cribs. We are both cool w/ that. We will alternate the babies in the co-sleeper so they start getting used to sleeping in their own space... I did enjoy cuddling w/ Lily this a.m. She was havning a hard time getting settled.. I think she was cold b/c the temps are dropping for the impending fall! (YEAH! - not so yeah about the winter that follows)
For those that care Jason slept from 7:45pm to 2 am last night.. he started out in a sling from 7:45pm to 9:30 ish,, but hey, he slept. We're thrilled. Lily was up a bit more, but it wasn't too bad.. at least she wasn't screaming (like she used to) and would go back to sleep easily.
It feels like Lily is finally getting some heft to her.. if she stayed in the 1 oz. a day gain she has officially hit 9 lbs... What a big girl. Oh and dad (Papa) found a tickle spot that pretty consistantly makes her smile - I tried to catch it on the camera, but no luck. I'll keep trying!
Yeah! I'm so glad they're sleeping for you! Now, you read all those books for me and figure this whole thing out for me before I have this baby because I'm tellin' ya, this early hormonal rush is KILLING me. My body and head aches ALL the time. I'm just a lazy bag of bones right now and I don't have the strength to read! Ha! JK That's like the pot calling the kettle black, huh? I imagine the tiredness is 100x more for you than it is for me. But hey, since you're reading up on the stuff anyhow, give me the cliff notes,k? =)
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